How much is a Senate seat worth?

We had Michael Crick, Newsnight’s political editor, in school yesterday to speak to the Politics Society on ‘Could politicians ever be trusted?’. One of the points made was that despite appearances to the contrary, British politics is pretty clean, and probably less corrupt than countries such as France, Germany, and the United States.

As if in support of his case, this report has come out of Illinois:

‘The governor of Illinois brazenly put up for sale his appointment of Barack Obama’s successor in the United States Senate.

In recorded conversations with advisers, the governor, Rod R. Blagojevich, seemed alternately boastful, flip and spiteful about the Senate choice, which he crassly likened at one point to that of a sports agent shopping around a free agent for the steepest price, a federal affidavit showed. At times, he even weighed aloud appointing himself to the job, the prosecutors said.’ Source: the New York Times